I love my new hair so much, I cannot even say. I put myself into the stylist's hands, said "funky," said "asymmetrical," said "not shorter than my chin," and let her get to work. You have no idea how much hair there was on the floor. I have been growing my hair pretty much uninterrupted since I was thirteen. Now it grazes my shoulders. And that's the longest layer. There are layers no longer than four inches (when the curl's unstretched). There are teeny-tiny short curls around my face. The asymmetry is pronounced. It's sweet and fluffy and funky. I am done with shapeless teenage-girl hair forever. It is sassy-twentysomething hair. It is fantastic. Also, it is like big arrows pointing at my cheekbones and jawline. Whee. Hair.
The other day there was a fat activism workshop on my college campus. The Feminist Student Union and the Queer Alliance publicized it sort of halfheartedly. My thriftshop-planning partner couldn't make it, but wanted me to go to chat up the activists, who are tied into the Portland fat activism organizations. I went. I was the only fat person, other than the people who were giving the workshop.
It was...fine? I wished, passionately, that the women presenting had been better public speakers. This is my own work-within-the-system preference, but I hate playing into stereotypes, and fat people are constantly at risk of seeming unprofessional and having that chalked up to their fatness. These women are not professional public speakers. Maybe that means that they shouldn't be representing their organizations in this medium. I'm not sure. I wanted to yelp, "stop saying, 'you know?' right now!" But the discussion was pretty free and pretty fun, and that it was happening was nice, and I met a staff member who's doing her dissertation on representations of fatness...especially in advertising and fashion. Which is to say, all the things I like best. We stood around afterwards and talked about Susan Bordo and Fatshionista and my thrift store plans and her dissertation. The idea of "fat studies" is really gathering steam as an academic field. There's a conference at Smith coming up this month. I really might be interested in that, but I wouldn't want to do it exclusively. I'd want to do it in the context of the way I'm working with things like canonicity and cultural identity in my thesis. I wonder if talking about fat studies in my personal statements to grad schools would make me a more (innovative!) or less (...fat) attractive candidate for admission to said grad schools.
It is a sign of such intense weakness that my abs are sore from the minimal yoga I am doing twice a week. Can I blame it on surgery? Bah. My legs have always been tough, because I walk a lot and I'm carrying my own weight when I do it, but the rest of me? Not so much. I am looking forward to working on that, so the soreness is probably positive.
And by the way? I love my hair.
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Trajectories: Eating Food, Hair & Femininity
I did good today.
I woke up and made myself an omelet with spinach and onions and cheddar cheese. And ate some applesauce. This was brunch. I had a microwave South Beach pizza for dinner (okay, I am totally not on the South Beach diet and those things are way too expensive, but they are also miracles of modern science, because the South Beach engineers have crammed THIRTY-ONE grams of protein and ELEVEN grams of fiber into a 340-calorie microwave pizza that doesn't taste bad, and the biology of that, like, totally eludes me) with some roast beef slices and grapes. And a cup of hot chocolate as a late-night snack. Way to go, kid, on mission: Eat Nourishingly In A Way That Is Constructively Emotionally Nourishing (I am not good at catchy mission titles).
And now I have corn muffins in the oven for breakfast or library snacks or something. They smell nice. I had sort of forgotten, over the past week, how wonderful nutritive food is, and how much more comforting it really is. But the thing is that it's slower, and when I'm as upset as I've been of late, I don't want to slow down, because slowing down allows the upset to creep in at the cracks.
A trip to the campus health center yielded a prescription for a stopgap anti-anxiety medication (just to get me through to the completion of my Major Academic Project), seven months' worth of practically-free birth control, and, to the end of attaining said practically-free birth control, the information that my blood pressure is back to its preferred pre-surgery mark, which is 120/78, which is perfect.
I have taken the muffins out of the oven. They are pretty. Golden brown and puffy.
And today I made the appointment to cut off my hair. I have long, kind of dramatic hair, and it's one of the ways that people identify me politely ("the girl with long curly hair," instead of "the fat girl"). It's also one of the things people compliment politely ("You have such beautiful hair!" is second only to "You have such beautiful eyes!"). And other than a highlight here and a face-framing layer there, I haven't changed it since I grew out a total hair disaster when I was thirteen or fourteen. Although I've had very competent (and expensive) people cutting my hair, I've been terrified to make any big changes. Hair is important. There is the normal fear of looking bad. There is the sort of inchoate fear of change that attaches to your hair, the fear that maybe has something to do with your appearance, but is mostly just fear of loss, I think, that rises up strong when you try to call a salon. And for me, there is the fact that having long and dramatic hair was a way of asserting femininity when for a long time I didn't feel particularly feminine. For a long time I didn't feel feminine at all. For awhile, in fact, I somehow harbored the private belief that I did not have breasts. I wore a D cup at the time, but secretly, I believed that what I had was fat not breasts like other girls. But yes. Long hair. Femininity. And my mother had always wanted me to have short hair when I was little, because curly hair is so difficult to take care of, and that had always been a bathroom power struggle. I thought my face was too fat for short hair, that long hair somehow...hid something? I don't know. Now I'm finding sort of the opposite is true: my hair has gotten so long that I lose volume at the crown, which makes my face look rounder than it is.
I want a sideswept bang and shorter layers, to emphasize my cheekbones.
And now I have a hair appointment. The stylist is heavily vouched-for by women with curly hair on the internet. I have pictures to bring with me. Chin-length asymmetrical bobs.
And I do feel the upsurge of inchoate fear. But I don't think I feel particularly concerned about losing my femininity (other than the fact that my boyfriend is attached to my long hair). I want the clean slate of a big hair change, its trumped-up symbolism. I cut off a chunk in the mirror today. I am impatient. I am shaking my head and my long, long hair—almost waist-length when you pull the curl taut—and anticipating the strangeness of lightening.
I woke up and made myself an omelet with spinach and onions and cheddar cheese. And ate some applesauce. This was brunch. I had a microwave South Beach pizza for dinner (okay, I am totally not on the South Beach diet and those things are way too expensive, but they are also miracles of modern science, because the South Beach engineers have crammed THIRTY-ONE grams of protein and ELEVEN grams of fiber into a 340-calorie microwave pizza that doesn't taste bad, and the biology of that, like, totally eludes me) with some roast beef slices and grapes. And a cup of hot chocolate as a late-night snack. Way to go, kid, on mission: Eat Nourishingly In A Way That Is Constructively Emotionally Nourishing (I am not good at catchy mission titles).
And now I have corn muffins in the oven for breakfast or library snacks or something. They smell nice. I had sort of forgotten, over the past week, how wonderful nutritive food is, and how much more comforting it really is. But the thing is that it's slower, and when I'm as upset as I've been of late, I don't want to slow down, because slowing down allows the upset to creep in at the cracks.
A trip to the campus health center yielded a prescription for a stopgap anti-anxiety medication (just to get me through to the completion of my Major Academic Project), seven months' worth of practically-free birth control, and, to the end of attaining said practically-free birth control, the information that my blood pressure is back to its preferred pre-surgery mark, which is 120/78, which is perfect.
I have taken the muffins out of the oven. They are pretty. Golden brown and puffy.
And today I made the appointment to cut off my hair. I have long, kind of dramatic hair, and it's one of the ways that people identify me politely ("the girl with long curly hair," instead of "the fat girl"). It's also one of the things people compliment politely ("You have such beautiful hair!" is second only to "You have such beautiful eyes!"). And other than a highlight here and a face-framing layer there, I haven't changed it since I grew out a total hair disaster when I was thirteen or fourteen. Although I've had very competent (and expensive) people cutting my hair, I've been terrified to make any big changes. Hair is important. There is the normal fear of looking bad. There is the sort of inchoate fear of change that attaches to your hair, the fear that maybe has something to do with your appearance, but is mostly just fear of loss, I think, that rises up strong when you try to call a salon. And for me, there is the fact that having long and dramatic hair was a way of asserting femininity when for a long time I didn't feel particularly feminine. For a long time I didn't feel feminine at all. For awhile, in fact, I somehow harbored the private belief that I did not have breasts. I wore a D cup at the time, but secretly, I believed that what I had was fat not breasts like other girls. But yes. Long hair. Femininity. And my mother had always wanted me to have short hair when I was little, because curly hair is so difficult to take care of, and that had always been a bathroom power struggle. I thought my face was too fat for short hair, that long hair somehow...hid something? I don't know. Now I'm finding sort of the opposite is true: my hair has gotten so long that I lose volume at the crown, which makes my face look rounder than it is.
I want a sideswept bang and shorter layers, to emphasize my cheekbones.
And now I have a hair appointment. The stylist is heavily vouched-for by women with curly hair on the internet. I have pictures to bring with me. Chin-length asymmetrical bobs.
And I do feel the upsurge of inchoate fear. But I don't think I feel particularly concerned about losing my femininity (other than the fact that my boyfriend is attached to my long hair). I want the clean slate of a big hair change, its trumped-up symbolism. I cut off a chunk in the mirror today. I am impatient. I am shaking my head and my long, long hair—almost waist-length when you pull the curl taut—and anticipating the strangeness of lightening.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Coffee Heath Bar Crunch
I just ate a full pint of ice cream for what I think is the first time since before treatment.
You will not never binge again, I remember someone Staff saying. For so long that wasn't true. I don't mean until now, but for months and months I kept a very, very tight rein on my eating, counting exchanges, worrying if any extra bite or thought of biting was disordered.
And so what? I have done an eating-disordered thing. I am having the worst week of my life, and I was in the supermarket because I needed groceries and I knew it was perilous to be there, but it was also perilous not to be, and I just could not find a reason not to comfort myself in what is still one of the very few ways I know how.
And the things just keep coming, the stressful frightening things, and I just don't know how to survive them, weather them, and the kid with whom I host lunches for prospective students came into the admissions office today where I was already sitting, all ready to engage in an I-have-so-much-work pissing contest, and I nearly cried. That's the way to sell the school!
I have done an eating-disordered thing. I have done eating-disordered things before. I will do eating-disordered things in the future. It doesn't mean I have an eating disorder now like I did then, not the same magnitude. It is not all or nothing; surely I've learned that much.
I am going to survive this week and I am going to find some small form of stress relief that is not food. Something that allows me to recognize my feelings instead of swallowing them.
You will not never binge again, I remember someone Staff saying. For so long that wasn't true. I don't mean until now, but for months and months I kept a very, very tight rein on my eating, counting exchanges, worrying if any extra bite or thought of biting was disordered.
And so what? I have done an eating-disordered thing. I am having the worst week of my life, and I was in the supermarket because I needed groceries and I knew it was perilous to be there, but it was also perilous not to be, and I just could not find a reason not to comfort myself in what is still one of the very few ways I know how.
And the things just keep coming, the stressful frightening things, and I just don't know how to survive them, weather them, and the kid with whom I host lunches for prospective students came into the admissions office today where I was already sitting, all ready to engage in an I-have-so-much-work pissing contest, and I nearly cried. That's the way to sell the school!
I have done an eating-disordered thing. I have done eating-disordered things before. I will do eating-disordered things in the future. It doesn't mean I have an eating disorder now like I did then, not the same magnitude. It is not all or nothing; surely I've learned that much.
I am going to survive this week and I am going to find some small form of stress relief that is not food. Something that allows me to recognize my feelings instead of swallowing them.
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Cute as a (fat) button
I feel kind of weird saying this (the reasons why are a whole different post), but: I'm feeling pretty body-positive these days. Perhaps it's partly that I'm recovering, and I'm very keen on the fact that I can do things like walk, and stand up, and lie on my stomach. And have sex. But I was getting into the shower today and looked at myself in the mirror and felt pretty cute. Okay, better than pretty cute. Totally did a couple of cheesecake poses in the mirror. Totally thought (for just a second!) about becoming an internet alt-porn fat pinup girl.
Yes, there are things I don't like about my body. Things I hate about it. Things I would consider fixing with plastic surgery (especially considering how well my gallbladder scars are healing! I am so excited that I scar well!). Interestingly, most of these things have to do with the effects not of being fat, but of weight fluctuation, being thinner than I used to be, losing and gaining weight repeatedly and quickly—stretched skin that leaves me baggy in places I totally do not want to be baggy.
There really are people who think if you are fat, you are ugly. I am not one of those people. I may have been at some point, but I definitely am not now. There are so many more important factors in beauty. Bone structure and proportion and the skills of presentation. And there are people who believe in the "pretty face," who can deal with your face but not your body if you are fat. I have been one of those people. I am not one of those people any more.
Honest-to-God, I loved my body in the mirror today. Squashy and baggy and cellulitic, porous and hair-dotted, smooth and pale and curved and cute as hell. I loved my body like the my-mom's-a-hippie puberty guides tell you you're supposed to. For a few minutes. It was great. This is so, so new. I cannot even tell you.
More and more and more, I think, Okay, I could do this. Fat my whole life? Cool. It would mean never being the girl I was supposed to be. But think of the girl I could be instead! She's pretty fantastic. She's tough and straight-talking and fascinating, she's funny, she's smart and thoughtful. She is not an ingenue, but she is pretty fantastic.
Also, if she would get her ass to the gym, she would be smoking hot. I should probably talk her out of plastic surgery, though, right?
P.S. I do not get all the credit for feeling super-cute. I put up a picture in a fatshionista thread and got several truly lovely compliments from several truly lovely (& fashionable!) women. That helped. Credit where it's due.
Upcoming!
I am thinking about the following two things: intersections of fat and class (pursuant to discussions on fatshionista; the weirdness of fad diets that DENY YOU CARROTS, because WHAT THE FUCK? Those posts are coming. Long overdue, though they won't be definitive. Also about opening an IRA, but that has nothing to do with fat.
Yes, there are things I don't like about my body. Things I hate about it. Things I would consider fixing with plastic surgery (especially considering how well my gallbladder scars are healing! I am so excited that I scar well!). Interestingly, most of these things have to do with the effects not of being fat, but of weight fluctuation, being thinner than I used to be, losing and gaining weight repeatedly and quickly—stretched skin that leaves me baggy in places I totally do not want to be baggy.
There really are people who think if you are fat, you are ugly. I am not one of those people. I may have been at some point, but I definitely am not now. There are so many more important factors in beauty. Bone structure and proportion and the skills of presentation. And there are people who believe in the "pretty face," who can deal with your face but not your body if you are fat. I have been one of those people. I am not one of those people any more.
Honest-to-God, I loved my body in the mirror today. Squashy and baggy and cellulitic, porous and hair-dotted, smooth and pale and curved and cute as hell. I loved my body like the my-mom's-a-hippie puberty guides tell you you're supposed to. For a few minutes. It was great. This is so, so new. I cannot even tell you.
More and more and more, I think, Okay, I could do this. Fat my whole life? Cool. It would mean never being the girl I was supposed to be. But think of the girl I could be instead! She's pretty fantastic. She's tough and straight-talking and fascinating, she's funny, she's smart and thoughtful. She is not an ingenue, but she is pretty fantastic.
Also, if she would get her ass to the gym, she would be smoking hot. I should probably talk her out of plastic surgery, though, right?
P.S. I do not get all the credit for feeling super-cute. I put up a picture in a fatshionista thread and got several truly lovely compliments from several truly lovely (& fashionable!) women. That helped. Credit where it's due.
Upcoming!
I am thinking about the following two things: intersections of fat and class (pursuant to discussions on fatshionista; the weirdness of fad diets that DENY YOU CARROTS, because WHAT THE FUCK? Those posts are coming. Long overdue, though they won't be definitive. Also about opening an IRA, but that has nothing to do with fat.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Different Body
Over the past two weeks, something truly unpleasant happened to me. I got sick, in the mode of what my doctor (see: "blame it on the fat") thought was acid reflux. I did all the things that I was supposed to, all the things that have worked in the past. Nothing. Called my doctor, doubled the dose of medication. Nothing. Finally, I went to the emergency room, where I was summarily informed that I needed my gallbladder removed, right away. I had emergency surgery in what turned out to be the nick of time. Because the situation was actually rather dire, the recovery process is a little grueling. I've had a drainage tube embedded in my abdomen, which is sliced open in three places. I've been on Vicodin for a week. My stamina is nil, and pain persists.
It has made me think of my body in a different way. I mean, it's brought up some body image stuff in general (the feeling of being gross and not intact is a familiar one), but also: fat or not, I am pretty happy in my body as a matter of general principle. It is sturdy and serviceable and healthy. It doesn't hurt when I sit in weird positions. I can walk long distances at good speeds with my hips swinging, looking confident in a way that makes me feel confident. I can't do that right now. I walk slowly and shufflingly, hunched, like an old person. Can barely stand up straight. It's hard to think of myself the same way when this is the way I walk. Normally, my body is tough and resilient and ebullient, I can wiggle and dance and bounce. I am agile. I am durable.
Not so of late. And it makes me realize the things I normally take for granted. All the things my funny imperfect wrong body, over which I do a lot of hand-wringing, can do for me, and does do for me, without complaint and without recompense. I am not glad to be sick and weak and in pain, but I am glad to have the little refocusing of attention.
On the other hand: Today in the doctor's office, before he came in to remove the drainage tube from me (a procedure that has the following steps: cut cord anchoring tube through holes in skin; pull hard to remove eight inches of coiled plastic from abdomen) I (for a change!) could not resist the attendant scale. I shucked off my heavy shoes and weighed myself (at the end of the day! in clothes!) and discovered I'd lost about ten pounds. I wonder how much an inflamed gallbladder weighs.
It has made me think of my body in a different way. I mean, it's brought up some body image stuff in general (the feeling of being gross and not intact is a familiar one), but also: fat or not, I am pretty happy in my body as a matter of general principle. It is sturdy and serviceable and healthy. It doesn't hurt when I sit in weird positions. I can walk long distances at good speeds with my hips swinging, looking confident in a way that makes me feel confident. I can't do that right now. I walk slowly and shufflingly, hunched, like an old person. Can barely stand up straight. It's hard to think of myself the same way when this is the way I walk. Normally, my body is tough and resilient and ebullient, I can wiggle and dance and bounce. I am agile. I am durable.
Not so of late. And it makes me realize the things I normally take for granted. All the things my funny imperfect wrong body, over which I do a lot of hand-wringing, can do for me, and does do for me, without complaint and without recompense. I am not glad to be sick and weak and in pain, but I am glad to have the little refocusing of attention.
On the other hand: Today in the doctor's office, before he came in to remove the drainage tube from me (a procedure that has the following steps: cut cord anchoring tube through holes in skin; pull hard to remove eight inches of coiled plastic from abdomen) I (for a change!) could not resist the attendant scale. I shucked off my heavy shoes and weighed myself (at the end of the day! in clothes!) and discovered I'd lost about ten pounds. I wonder how much an inflamed gallbladder weighs.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Outed.
Apologies for the long hiatus.
I suppose one's boyfriend is bound to find one's blog, eventually, but it was no less shocking for that supposition. At first I thought, Well, fine, and then, over the course of the evening, I remembered things I'd written. Like little stones dropping in my stomach. And then a big stone, last of all: My weight. The number. Is on this blog. Which he read. Oh God. I can't think of anyone who would think it's fun for her boyfriend to know what she weighs. But apparently he still likes me.
But here's the thing: what throws me more than anything—more even than the numbers—is that I feel I lost my ability to put a good face on things. That keeping this blog—that wanting or needing to keep this blog, having the thoughts with which to fuel it—make me a little bit totally insane, and now I can't hide it. I like to be able to do my own spin control. Lately I have been more positive about my body, happier about it, than ever before. But that is a state that includes ambivalence—and, as always, it's the ambivalence with which I have a hard time. The I'm not sure. I like to have a defined position, even if it is sometimes more aspiration than totally reflective of my constant internal state. And I like my current defined position, such as it is outwardly manifest. It is lovely and open and light and charmingly countercultural and it is politically sound and it supports me and other fat people and I like it. But I don't always reach the high bar it sets. And that's what I have trouble with. Perhaps unsurprisingly.
We—he and I—drove down to a group therapy meeting at the treatment center at which I spent a month more than a year ago. I was on edge. Nitpicky. It was an intimate experience. I did not make a lot of eye contact. I was aware of doing that. Of feeling collapsed into myself. Was the nit-picking, then, an attempt to ward off what otherwise might have been a terrifying intimacy? Based on someone liking me (let us say loving me, even) even sitting in a physical presentation of I am not as on top of things as all that, really.
I like things to be sure. I like them to be clean and solid. Food has a lot of that resonance to me: in my most eating-disordered moments, I decide based on clean or not-clean? and what that means is safe or not-safe? I have trouble in in-between spaces and in-between times (like, say, now, this pre-semester limbo). I am not at my best in the liminal areas. And it's why being outed is disturbing, because I have been a little liminal here. Sassy and confident, yes, but also insecure and obsessive and gross. Both. Which are both sort of percolating around right now. Which doesn't mean I'm not doing well. I'm doing better than I've ever done before. Which means confronting liminality, I guess.
I suppose one's boyfriend is bound to find one's blog, eventually, but it was no less shocking for that supposition. At first I thought, Well, fine, and then, over the course of the evening, I remembered things I'd written. Like little stones dropping in my stomach. And then a big stone, last of all: My weight. The number. Is on this blog. Which he read. Oh God. I can't think of anyone who would think it's fun for her boyfriend to know what she weighs. But apparently he still likes me.
But here's the thing: what throws me more than anything—more even than the numbers—is that I feel I lost my ability to put a good face on things. That keeping this blog—that wanting or needing to keep this blog, having the thoughts with which to fuel it—make me a little bit totally insane, and now I can't hide it. I like to be able to do my own spin control. Lately I have been more positive about my body, happier about it, than ever before. But that is a state that includes ambivalence—and, as always, it's the ambivalence with which I have a hard time. The I'm not sure. I like to have a defined position, even if it is sometimes more aspiration than totally reflective of my constant internal state. And I like my current defined position, such as it is outwardly manifest. It is lovely and open and light and charmingly countercultural and it is politically sound and it supports me and other fat people and I like it. But I don't always reach the high bar it sets. And that's what I have trouble with. Perhaps unsurprisingly.
We—he and I—drove down to a group therapy meeting at the treatment center at which I spent a month more than a year ago. I was on edge. Nitpicky. It was an intimate experience. I did not make a lot of eye contact. I was aware of doing that. Of feeling collapsed into myself. Was the nit-picking, then, an attempt to ward off what otherwise might have been a terrifying intimacy? Based on someone liking me (let us say loving me, even) even sitting in a physical presentation of I am not as on top of things as all that, really.
I like things to be sure. I like them to be clean and solid. Food has a lot of that resonance to me: in my most eating-disordered moments, I decide based on clean or not-clean? and what that means is safe or not-safe? I have trouble in in-between spaces and in-between times (like, say, now, this pre-semester limbo). I am not at my best in the liminal areas. And it's why being outed is disturbing, because I have been a little liminal here. Sassy and confident, yes, but also insecure and obsessive and gross. Both. Which are both sort of percolating around right now. Which doesn't mean I'm not doing well. I'm doing better than I've ever done before. Which means confronting liminality, I guess.
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Cliches
Cliché Number One: Awake at six a.m. due to an upsurge of acid reflux, I started doing some internet research, hoping for a website that would say: here is what you should do to get your insides to stop burning and clenching so you can get back to sleep. None of them did. However. I noted something else interesting. Not one of these websites mentioned fatness as causally related to gastroesophageal reflux disease. When this first cropped up in my life, it was all anyone talked about. My doctor. My mother. Do you think it's related to your binge eating? The websites I read this morning offered clinical descriptions of the weakness of the esophagus that causes this condition. A couple mentioned behavioral modifications that can help reduce symptoms. One mentioned weight loss as such a behavioral modification. But nowhere did I find even an insinuation that being fat causes gastrointestinal distress. Thus I discovered, retroactively, my first adult encounter with that common issue in fat medical care: Blame It On The Fat. This is particularly demonstrative, because I receive very good medical care. Mothers aren't ranked (though I can tell you anecdotally that at this point in my life I generally find mine lovely), but the doctor I'm talking about here shows up annually in the New York Magazine "best doctors" list, noted for young women's health and a specialty in eating disorders (let me tell you, she draws blood like a champ, but knows fuck-all about eating disorders in fat people—I remember her confusion when I first tried to articulate that I didn't think I was fat because I had an abnormally large appetite that could be treated with appetite suppressants). Point is: even the best doctors. The most expensive, the ones with the best reputations.
I did eventually get back to sleep (apple juice, water crackers, elevation of the upper body) and feel much better. (By the way.)
Cliché Number Two: I think I am developing a Shopping Issue. I went on a hypothetical shopping spree on the Lane Bryant website the other day, putting everything I wanted into my cart, and stopped short when I quickly racked up a thousand-dollar (hypothetical!) bill. When given a check for Christmas by my kind, generous, and extraordinarily entertaining aunt, I mentally earmarked it for clothes shopping. I used to want books. Now all I want is clothing. It is enough to make an English major feel superficial. Thoughts include: I have discovered the ability to dress myself and want to exercise it and what's wrong with that?; what sort of crazy consumerist machine am I buying (literally) into?; I wish I had the two hundred dollars to spend on a brown velvet skirt suit and if I did I would try not to think twice about spending it. Combination of books and fashion: an item on my Christmas list (alas, unfulfilled, so I will have to buy it for myself) included Roland Barthes's collection of theoretical writings: The Language of Fashion.
I was a terribly, terribly matronly high-school girl. My weight fluctuated wildly (during that four years I wore a 14, a 28, and everything in between). Clothes shopping was a hateful ordeal, and I avoided it, so a lot of my clothing was bought for me by my mother. Tentlike basic t-shirts, sack-skirts, elastic-waist "jeans." And now that I've learned that I can dress my body to advantage? Now that there's a boy who (for reasons I on bad days find unfathomable, I admit) kind of can't keep his hands off my ass? I cannot stop buying clothing. Or, perhaps more accurately, I cannot stop thinking about buying clothing. I find it diverting, distracting, and empowering. Can all three be true?
Among the slightly-too-big and slightly-too-small Christmas clothing gifts (after a very explicit email about my sizes—the fat girls know what I'm talking about in the pluralization and for all I know the skinny girls do, too) is an absolutely perfect dress. One perfect dress. I believe in the power of a perfect dress. With all my silly heart.
I did eventually get back to sleep (apple juice, water crackers, elevation of the upper body) and feel much better. (By the way.)
Cliché Number Two: I think I am developing a Shopping Issue. I went on a hypothetical shopping spree on the Lane Bryant website the other day, putting everything I wanted into my cart, and stopped short when I quickly racked up a thousand-dollar (hypothetical!) bill. When given a check for Christmas by my kind, generous, and extraordinarily entertaining aunt, I mentally earmarked it for clothes shopping. I used to want books. Now all I want is clothing. It is enough to make an English major feel superficial. Thoughts include: I have discovered the ability to dress myself and want to exercise it and what's wrong with that?; what sort of crazy consumerist machine am I buying (literally) into?; I wish I had the two hundred dollars to spend on a brown velvet skirt suit and if I did I would try not to think twice about spending it. Combination of books and fashion: an item on my Christmas list (alas, unfulfilled, so I will have to buy it for myself) included Roland Barthes's collection of theoretical writings: The Language of Fashion.
I was a terribly, terribly matronly high-school girl. My weight fluctuated wildly (during that four years I wore a 14, a 28, and everything in between). Clothes shopping was a hateful ordeal, and I avoided it, so a lot of my clothing was bought for me by my mother. Tentlike basic t-shirts, sack-skirts, elastic-waist "jeans." And now that I've learned that I can dress my body to advantage? Now that there's a boy who (for reasons I on bad days find unfathomable, I admit) kind of can't keep his hands off my ass? I cannot stop buying clothing. Or, perhaps more accurately, I cannot stop thinking about buying clothing. I find it diverting, distracting, and empowering. Can all three be true?
Among the slightly-too-big and slightly-too-small Christmas clothing gifts (after a very explicit email about my sizes—the fat girls know what I'm talking about in the pluralization and for all I know the skinny girls do, too) is an absolutely perfect dress. One perfect dress. I believe in the power of a perfect dress. With all my silly heart.
Sunday, December 25, 2005
Fat Shock Value
I was the only fat person in the room all night at my parents' holiday open house this evening. I wore a dress both short and low-cut and received tons of compliments. I felt good, even if the cleavage on display was a mock-up of bra and arrangement.
Smalltalk question of the evening: "So, what are you planning on doing after graduation?"
Response: "I'm thinking about starting a thrift store for fat people." I tried to always accompany this with a cocked head and a charming smile.
In some tiny way, this is activism (in a more immediate way, it is immensely entertaining). One recipient of this response remarked on the ease with which I use the word "fat." He said, "I can barely get it out of my mouth." I smiled. A middleaged woman, the mother of a childhood friend, was more conventional: "You're not fat, you're beautiful."
I wasn't quick enough on my feet to ask: "Why can't I be both?"
My learning curve about talking about fatness has been so steep lately. Before the fat clothing thrift store idea, there were so few people I'd talk about this stuff to. Now, I yammer on in beer gardens and library lobbies and cocktail parties to boys my age and men my parents' age, to friends and acquaintances and strangers. I find it delightful. The best part is that nobody disagrees. I have a theory that nobody ever disagrees, that if enough people just speak flippantly about fatness, if we are just charming and pretty and articulate as we consistently talk talk talk talk talk about fatness as if we expect to be taken seriously, as if no reasonable person could possibly fail to take us seriously, public opinion (in the aesthetic sense) will begin to change.
"My mother wanted me to be a slim respectable socialite. Instead, I became an overweight troublemaker." Of course, I'd replace "overweight" with "fat," but I love Brigid Berlin.
Smalltalk question of the evening: "So, what are you planning on doing after graduation?"
Response: "I'm thinking about starting a thrift store for fat people." I tried to always accompany this with a cocked head and a charming smile.
In some tiny way, this is activism (in a more immediate way, it is immensely entertaining). One recipient of this response remarked on the ease with which I use the word "fat." He said, "I can barely get it out of my mouth." I smiled. A middleaged woman, the mother of a childhood friend, was more conventional: "You're not fat, you're beautiful."
I wasn't quick enough on my feet to ask: "Why can't I be both?"
My learning curve about talking about fatness has been so steep lately. Before the fat clothing thrift store idea, there were so few people I'd talk about this stuff to. Now, I yammer on in beer gardens and library lobbies and cocktail parties to boys my age and men my parents' age, to friends and acquaintances and strangers. I find it delightful. The best part is that nobody disagrees. I have a theory that nobody ever disagrees, that if enough people just speak flippantly about fatness, if we are just charming and pretty and articulate as we consistently talk talk talk talk talk about fatness as if we expect to be taken seriously, as if no reasonable person could possibly fail to take us seriously, public opinion (in the aesthetic sense) will begin to change.
"My mother wanted me to be a slim respectable socialite. Instead, I became an overweight troublemaker." Of course, I'd replace "overweight" with "fat," but I love Brigid Berlin.
Monday, December 19, 2005
More
When I am around a scale, I cannot resist it. 254.
I am not supposed to think about numbers. I do. I think about numbers all the time. I think about the numbers on the scale and the numbers that are my measurements and the numbers that are my clothing sizes. But you cannot make plans on numbers that slide on their own. It is infuriating.
I am sitting here and watching my boyfriend's TV show about Art and thinking about this stuff. That, too, is infuriating.
But sometimes one realizes all over again that this is everywhere, and today is one of those days. I read Glamour because my sister had it lying around—using it as a surface on which to make notes for Christmas presents, in which discussion she asks me, "So what's your size, these days?" (hers is a 6—used to be a 12)—and I have, finally, done what is considered such a symptom, the sectionalizing of the body. But I've done it now. I've broken myself down into parts. I have found saddlebags on my thighs. Things I hate: my breasts; my upper arms; my inner thighs.
There's the boyfriend's credit.
I am not supposed to think about numbers. I do. I think about numbers all the time. I think about the numbers on the scale and the numbers that are my measurements and the numbers that are my clothing sizes. But you cannot make plans on numbers that slide on their own. It is infuriating.
I am sitting here and watching my boyfriend's TV show about Art and thinking about this stuff. That, too, is infuriating.
But sometimes one realizes all over again that this is everywhere, and today is one of those days. I read Glamour because my sister had it lying around—using it as a surface on which to make notes for Christmas presents, in which discussion she asks me, "So what's your size, these days?" (hers is a 6—used to be a 12)—and I have, finally, done what is considered such a symptom, the sectionalizing of the body. But I've done it now. I've broken myself down into parts. I have found saddlebags on my thighs. Things I hate: my breasts; my upper arms; my inner thighs.
There's the boyfriend's credit.
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Does It Stop?
I saw my nutritionist today.
(We are in medias res. I see a nutritionist. Biweekly. She is part of my Team. I was a resident in an inpatient eating disorder treatment facility, fall of '04, and progress must be maintained and, hopefully, furthered.)
Anyway, I told my nutritionist that I have been having "spikes of distress." She asked, "Food or body image?" I thought. "Body image."
I had to buy pants. The fantastic pants I bought way on sale got the chub-rub holes. I'm teetering on this weird edge where sometimes a Gap 20 fits and sometimes it doesn't. The Gap 20 I bought on eBay? Didn't. And I've been trying to buy my sister a skirt for Christmas. She wears a 6.
And I've been reading the diet blogs again. Thinking I should lose weight. I've been holding so nice and steady. But when I went home for Thanksgiving, my mother said brightly—my mother, who is generally good about observing the edicts of mental health professionals—that I looked like I lost weight. I disagreed, but weighed myself and saw 257, down from my last noted weight of 263.
I wonder if it ever stops.
This is why I bring up my nutritionist. I told her how they told us in treatment over and over again that "bad body image is the last to go." Even so, I said, "I want it gone."
You will note that my New Year's Resolution was something of a failure. I will note, surreptitiously (now, not-so-surreptitiously), that I wonder why I was writing this then. What happened January 3rd that made me want to start a blog? I know what happened January 1st. I had the best New Year's kiss of all time, with a kissing partner who turned into a wonderful friend and lover who turned into a truly fantastic boyfriend. Romance does not obviate the feeling that one is too fat for the world.
Last night I read personal ads. I thought, when we break up, will I ever find another boyfriend?
I am recording. Keeping an eye on things. As per my nutritionist's instructions. This is indeterminacy.
(We are in medias res. I see a nutritionist. Biweekly. She is part of my Team. I was a resident in an inpatient eating disorder treatment facility, fall of '04, and progress must be maintained and, hopefully, furthered.)
Anyway, I told my nutritionist that I have been having "spikes of distress." She asked, "Food or body image?" I thought. "Body image."
I had to buy pants. The fantastic pants I bought way on sale got the chub-rub holes. I'm teetering on this weird edge where sometimes a Gap 20 fits and sometimes it doesn't. The Gap 20 I bought on eBay? Didn't. And I've been trying to buy my sister a skirt for Christmas. She wears a 6.
And I've been reading the diet blogs again. Thinking I should lose weight. I've been holding so nice and steady. But when I went home for Thanksgiving, my mother said brightly—my mother, who is generally good about observing the edicts of mental health professionals—that I looked like I lost weight. I disagreed, but weighed myself and saw 257, down from my last noted weight of 263.
I wonder if it ever stops.
This is why I bring up my nutritionist. I told her how they told us in treatment over and over again that "bad body image is the last to go." Even so, I said, "I want it gone."
You will note that my New Year's Resolution was something of a failure. I will note, surreptitiously (now, not-so-surreptitiously), that I wonder why I was writing this then. What happened January 3rd that made me want to start a blog? I know what happened January 1st. I had the best New Year's kiss of all time, with a kissing partner who turned into a wonderful friend and lover who turned into a truly fantastic boyfriend. Romance does not obviate the feeling that one is too fat for the world.
Last night I read personal ads. I thought, when we break up, will I ever find another boyfriend?
I am recording. Keeping an eye on things. As per my nutritionist's instructions. This is indeterminacy.
Monday, January 03, 2005
Resolution
This blog is sort of one of my New Year's resolutions.
My resolution is not to lose weight. It is to be honest, even if behind a thick pixelated veil of anonymity, and so this is a blog about being fat, and in places and spheres in which one is not supposed to be fat. For all this talk of the Obesity Epidemic, I have always been the only Fat Girl. Or one of two, one of two girls who never looked at each other and for the love of all that is holy never talked to each other or walked next to each other, lest they blow their respective covers.
Because nice girls don't get fat. Not smart, witty girls at top-tier liberal-arts colleges, not girls with pretty faces, not upper-middle-class girls with nice parents with good jobs, not girls who read Vogue and know the names of fifteen-year-old models and the designers whose clothes are draped over them, not girls who listen to indie rock and go to parties in Brooklyn. Not those girls.
I am smart and witty and upper-middle-class and educated and I live in New York and go to school on the West Coast and read Vogue and care what's in it and I weigh two hundred and eighty seven-pounds. I don't exist.
The fact that I don't exist is what makes it okay for people to make fat jokes in front of me. Yesterday I was at the final performance of Golda's Balcony (which, frankly, I found underwhelming) and the part of Tovah Feldshuh's curtain speech that drew the most commentary backstage was her remark about "getting into [her] fat suit," which she seemed to want to get in to make sure we knew that "if you think this is my body, you're crazy."
"Spoken like a woman," my father said to her in the warm self-congratulatory backstage glow, enormously amused, and though I wanted to tell him later that I hadn't found it quite as charming as he had, I didn't want to draw attention to myself, the elephant in the room.
Something like that happens almost every day. A commercial on television that makes me freeze but at which other people don't even blink. Someone tapping me on the shoulder on the street, urging me to take off my headphones so that he can hand me advertisements for a weight-loss system.
So that's what this blog is for. I'm not trying to broadcast my weight-loss whatever. I'm trying to tell the truth.
My resolution is not to lose weight. It is to be honest, even if behind a thick pixelated veil of anonymity, and so this is a blog about being fat, and in places and spheres in which one is not supposed to be fat. For all this talk of the Obesity Epidemic, I have always been the only Fat Girl. Or one of two, one of two girls who never looked at each other and for the love of all that is holy never talked to each other or walked next to each other, lest they blow their respective covers.
Because nice girls don't get fat. Not smart, witty girls at top-tier liberal-arts colleges, not girls with pretty faces, not upper-middle-class girls with nice parents with good jobs, not girls who read Vogue and know the names of fifteen-year-old models and the designers whose clothes are draped over them, not girls who listen to indie rock and go to parties in Brooklyn. Not those girls.
I am smart and witty and upper-middle-class and educated and I live in New York and go to school on the West Coast and read Vogue and care what's in it and I weigh two hundred and eighty seven-pounds. I don't exist.
The fact that I don't exist is what makes it okay for people to make fat jokes in front of me. Yesterday I was at the final performance of Golda's Balcony (which, frankly, I found underwhelming) and the part of Tovah Feldshuh's curtain speech that drew the most commentary backstage was her remark about "getting into [her] fat suit," which she seemed to want to get in to make sure we knew that "if you think this is my body, you're crazy."
"Spoken like a woman," my father said to her in the warm self-congratulatory backstage glow, enormously amused, and though I wanted to tell him later that I hadn't found it quite as charming as he had, I didn't want to draw attention to myself, the elephant in the room.
Something like that happens almost every day. A commercial on television that makes me freeze but at which other people don't even blink. Someone tapping me on the shoulder on the street, urging me to take off my headphones so that he can hand me advertisements for a weight-loss system.
So that's what this blog is for. I'm not trying to broadcast my weight-loss whatever. I'm trying to tell the truth.
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